Adkins' odds have recently been slashed to become the new man at the helm at the Barclays Premier League club, who parted company with Steve Clarke in December.

But the 48-year-old insists he is totally focused on getting Reading's faltering Sky Bet Championship promotion challenge back on track.

He told BBC Radio Berkshire: "A chancer puts on £25 and the bookie takes the odds all the way down.

"All my focus and energies are on trying to do what's right at Reading Football Club.

"There's a lot going on behind the scenes to get the future right, and obviously we're in the transfer window now, indicating there's a lot going on because we've got to get our league campaign back on track."

The Royals have won only one of their last six league games and slipped to ninth in the Championship table.

Readers' Comments

I

t's wrong to be making a joke out of Bender's name at the expense of gay people. It's the kind of childish, uncivilised thing that Football365 would deride and ridicule if it was another media outlet saying. Why is there a need for jokes like this? Does it make your writers feel like men? F365 might suggest that I 'lighten up', but it is genuinely traumatic for people who have been oppressed all their lives to be the butt of jokes, and to be told...

ou can't blame De Gea for wanting to leave, he has enough to do in front of goal as it is as well as taking on the role of Man Utd's version of Derek Acorah in trying to contact and organise a defence that isn't there.